ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on one aspect of knowing in-relation, the requirement that no one be excluded from inquiry. Knowing in-relation cannot exclude different points of view; in fact, it needs to seek out and actively try to incorporate points of view different from and in opposition to any given ruling consensus. Separateness gives rise to the problem of skepticism as well as the scandals of lack in objectivity. Separate knowers are paradigmatic knowers. Objectivity therefore consists of distancing oneself from all that is personal and idiosyncratic about oneself—from everything one does not share with all other members of the community of inquiry. The conception of knowledge as propositional leads people very easily into a set of normative judgments: Theoretical science is the highest kind of knowledge, and only those who have scientific knowledge are genuine knowers. Separate knowing is oppressive; it cannot avoid or correct gross lapses of objectivity; and it gives rise to the apparently insoluble problem of skepticism.
